Call me a Luddite, but I say Palm Pilots must die

[RommelS]

Source: Globetechnology.com

Call me a Luddite, but I say Palm Pilots must die
Leah McLaren
(02/16/2003)

We arrive at the trendy new restaurant 10 minutes after our reservation time. We wait at the door, bundled up in winter coats. No one looks our way for another 10 minutes. Finally, we are informed that our table isn't ready (don't worry, I haven't turned into a cranky restaurant reviewer), and we are ushered into "the bar," which is really just a low-slung bench along a wall.

We pile our coats into a mountain of Gore-Tex and wool that immediately whooshes onto the slushy floor. Whatever. We need drinks. A round of vodka mojitos, please. Hello? Finally, we manage to flag down the waitress, a tanned, sweetly smiling blonde with no peripheral vision. Could we have a round of vodka mojitos, please? She holds her hands up helplessly. "So sorry, but I can't get you a drink. I don't have a Palm Pilot," she says, as though she were informing us of some obvious and terrible disability, a disability so crushing that it prevents her from turning and taking three steps to the left to the service bar and speaking with the bartender.

"You have to have a Palm Pilot to place an order," she explains before vanishing.

Several minutes later, a young man in a crisp white shirt bumbles up to our table. For a dozen seconds, he doesn't look at us, but instead stares at the screen in his hand, stabbing it with a small, black plastic stick. "Hang on a second," he says. "I'm still trying to figure this thing out." Finally, he takes our order. The vodka mojitos appear in due course.

Conversation at the table turns toward the issue of the Palm Pilot. Does anyone have one? Both the men admit they own Palm Pilots but never use them. A couple of years ago they bought them, figuring they were the way of the future. Now they languish in desk drawers at home.

"My Filofax won," one of the men says. "It just works better."

Which brings us to the topic of this column: Things that work, that do not need to be improved upon by technology.

1) The notepad. They're light, cheap and simple to use. They never break or run out of batteries and they've got lots of memory. If you fill one up, you can get another at any corner store. They are easy to substitute with napkins, cigarette packs, menus or the back of your hand. Most seasoned newspaper reporters use them exclusively (tape recorders being for magazine-trained sissies), as do doctors and waiters. Unless, of course, you work at a certain trendy Toronto restaurant. Poor you.

2) The ice-cube tray. Most of the happy childhood memories I have of my parents involve the sound of tinkling ice cubes. These cubes were not bought in bags at grocery stores or pumped out of dispensers from the freezer door, but were homemade in trays filled up by hand at the kitchen tap. Ice-cube trays work just fine. The ice is fresher and harder than the stuff you get from dispensers, and as long as you use it regularly, it never takes on that rank back-of-the-fridge smell. Death to all ice-cube dispensers.

3) Books. Hey, remember the e-book? Neither do I. For years, we read about the electronic book and how it was about to hit the consumer market and "revolutionize the book-retailing industry." And so we waited. And continued to buy paper books. And waited. And bought more paper books. And waited until eventually we forgot all about it. Books are good for all the reasons we take them for granted: They are simple to work, portable, easy on the eyes and the hands, and as pretty to look at on the shelf as they are piled on the floor.

4) The traditional letter. This week, I got the following piece of mail: An envelope containing a white cardboard rectangle with a square hole cut out of the centre. There were a few jumbled together words -- "modern, contemporaine, woman, urban, imaginative, refinement" -- and that was it. I know it's some sort of teaser campaign, but really, at what point does style completely triumph over basic information? There is teasing and then there's torture.

5) The gas stove. Was there ever a point to electric stoves? If so, what was it? Just a good reason to make us appreciate gas stoves again? I'm baffled.

6) Live pets. A couple of years back, Sony invented a robot dog that had all the man's-best-friend capabilities of a real pooch without the needs. They forgot that the most compelling thing about dogs is how desperately and immediately they come to depend upon you -- for everything. People need to be needed. Robots don't have needs. I don't need a robot. Or a Palm Pilot. I just need a vodka mojito.

[Elyod]

OK, but ebooks are taking me away from paperbacks more and more all the time.

But a restaurant taking orders on a Palm? Gee what if the battery dies and you can't prove what you ordered. Or better yet there is a disagreement about what you ordered. If you don't already know about palms you will certainly blame it on them as will the waiter.

However, I due agree with the title in total! "...but I say Palm Pilots must die." How true but long may PPCs rule!

[RommelS]

Not only that, eBooks are cheaper.

By the way I think the article is funny.

[Elyod]

I thought it was a hoot too. Can you imagine the learning curve for the wait-people? Not only do they have to learn the way the manager wants them to work and all the other stuff. They also have to learn a PDA...of course if they are young that won't be a big deal.

But if they are older...unfortunately like me (although I am a geek) they are going to be out in left field; that's just the way it generally is with people over 45 trying to learn computers. Not prejudicial, but I know I am a computer trainer at work and community college and I see it all the time.

[soulkiss]

I agree. I remember the days when our day didn't rotate around a piece of machinery. Except the stove and lamp. But now here I am with my Axim in hand. Done away with my Franklin Planner. "An appt? hold on let me get on PPC out. Hell, my dad just bought his first computer at age 56. And his first PDA at age 63. We gotta go with what works the best he says. My desk is a cluster of paper with notes and such waiting to be put into my Axim. I carry it faithfully like a preacher carries the bible to his sermon. It is great that technology has advanced this far. But in a way sad that we rely on these handheld marvels to get us thru the day....

My observation..... :cry: [/i][/i]

Soulkiss

[JTMoney]

What the heck is a vodka mojito? I find it hilarious that the author is ranting about things that don't need improvement, about the good old days, implying the waitstaff are sissies because they need Palm Pilots to take an order, and at the same time she's raving about some trendy sissie vodka drink.

I would have believed her little rant if she was trying to buy a Molson.

JT$

[DarkEmerald]

Originally posted by JTMoney@Feb 16 2003, 10:03 PM
What the heck is a vodka mojito?

Since you ask:

Mojito, the national drink of Cuba
1 1/2oz. Light Rum
1 oz. Lime Juice
1 tsp. Sugar
3-4 Mint Leaves
Club Soda

Combine lime juice, mint and sugar in a Collins or highball glass.
Stir gently to bruise the mint.
Fill glass 3/4 with ice.
Add the rum.
Top with soda. Stir well.

Mmmm. Sounds yummy with rum OR vodka. :P

And as a nod to the actual topic: I, too, read ebooks all the time, and prefer the format wherever possible. But I'd be the first to admit that I'm 1) a bit geeky, and 2) in the small minority of readers (who, in turn, are in the small minority of the population compared to non-readers). The article's author isn't incorrect--ebooks, which looked so promising and exciting in 1999, are kind of dormant today.

But they'll be back!

[JTMoney]

Blech. Give me a neat Maker's Mark (or a Mark and Coke if I'm feeling wimpy) any day.

JT$

[whatsurpointnow]

Don't you people know, the only "real" drink is scotch neat. And, only if consumed in quantities vast enough to create a stupor.

I have noticed the spread of a syndrom/trend over the last few years. It seems to affect the young and old with equal frequency. I see it in every industry and it is growing fast! A friend dubbed it "binary blindness" some of the symptoms include the following:

1. Trust in the computer over the obvious. every had a hotel clerk tell you something like "im sorry, we don't have a reservation for you." while you stand in front of them with confirmation number in hand.
2. If its not right there the first time I look, it doesn't exist. I mean its not as if the customer service rep from Pakistan/sri Lanka/India/Indiana could have mis-spelled something.
3. focus on the EQUIPMENT, not the PERSON. the classic example is watching your waiter didle around with the tool instead of making you feel welcome and wanted.

Feel free to add to this list. I am sure in the next few years it will be in the medical diagnostic codes under Piss Poor Training.

[JTMoney]

Originally posted by whatsurpointnow@Feb 17 2003, 10:52 AM
Don't you people know, the only "real" drink is scotch neat. And, only if consumed in quantities vast enough to create a stupor.

Scotch is just as trendy as a vodka mojito. Give me good ol' American bourbon any day. My girlfriend gave me a fifth of Maker's Mark for my birthday over the weekend, and I couldn't have been happier. She knows the way to my heart, that's for sure!

JT$